FOUR MASTER Sextons Portsmouth

Customer turns owner and installer

FOUR MASTER Focus - Sextons Portsmouth

 

Long-time car audio enthusiast Joe Winning took a less than traditional journey into the industry. When he arrived however, he was armed with knowledge and experience of both car audio and business in general.

 

Joe is what we used to call a “go-getter”. He grew up with a natural interest in cars and in particular, car audio. This consumed much of his time and money throughout his youth. He became a regular customer of Road Sound in Portsmouth, which later became Toad and finally Sextons. Meanwhile, he set up and ran a small IT brokering company that did well enough for him to be able to purchase Sextons Portsmouth when it came up for sale. He ran the two businesses in parallel until the recession hit. At this point both businesses took a downward turn. Joe tells us; “It was time to make a decision. I couldn't focus on two completely different areas at the same time and decided to go with my hobby-inspired business, Sextons. As with many other businesses, we tried to diversify and were sucked into high volume low margin products only to find that the high volume wasn’t there anymore. I needed to come up with a new strategy. We had a reputation as a car audio reseller and installer and to our regular customer base identified us as just that. We looked carefully at the products we stocked and observed some important holes in our offering. FOUR had been to see us a number of times but we had no hands-on experience with their brands, Hertz and Audison, but finally took the plunge and took in a small amount of product.

 

We were astounded at the quality and performance of these products and devised a strategy which allowed us to focus on mid-priced audio of great quality with the Hertz brand and use Audison for those looking for something special and we have not looked back since.”

 

During the recession years, Joe had to take the difficult decision to reduce overheads. This led to a reduction in staffing levels. Joe explains; “My original intention was to focus my efforts on sales however, as the recession slowly began to lift, I had no choice but to get involved with installation work. This move completely re-energized me and I now realize that I am happiest in a hands-on role in all departments.”

 

As business prospects improved, Joe was able to take up an offer to buy Sextons Southampton. The two businesses were amalgamated in 2012 with both now operating out of the Portsmouth HQ.

 

Sextons Portsmouth is now a thriving and compact business, perfectly scaled to the audio work coming through the door. His decision to focus on Hertz and Audison and become a FOUR MASTER has paid off both in terms of the quality of work and also the service level he is able to offer. Joe concludes; “We are busier now than we have been for a long time however, by injecting a total quality ethos into our operation we are able to focus on good work and excellent customer service. In a small specialist business this is extremely important. We live or die by the impression we make on our customers and now they only have good things to say about us. Good news spreads fast and we are always booked two or three days in advance but our customers are quite happy to wait for excellence!”

 

Contact Sextons Portsmouth on 023 9273 8262, www.sextons-portsmouth.co.uk


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